NUTS proposes us to investigate a forest full of squirrels in an excellent and visually impressive work of mystery designed with mastery and with just enough to captivate whoever enters it.
NUTS is not signed by any renowned independent team, but its creators are responsible for some of the most interesting works on the scene ; here they converge from the art of Orchids To Dusk by Pol Clarissou to the pen of Charlene Putney in works such as Divinity Original Sin 2 , through the sound design of Curious Expedition , by Almut Schwacke, and the level design of Torfi Ásgeirsson , founder of the studio responsible for Triple Agent . These four talents got involved to end up collaborating on this curious project led by Joon Van Hove as lead designer,years of work that has materialized in this excellent work now available on PC, Nintendo Switch and iOS devices through Apple Arcade.
What these five authors propose to us in this peculiar adventure is to introduce ourselves in the first person to a scientific investigation that achieves enough evidence to corroborate that the works of a large company will damage the Melmoth forest , a millenary natural area that has been attacked for years by the Urban planning intentions of Panorama; Some time ago they already tried to build a dam without the pertinent permits and now, after failing in that attempt, they want to carry out the construction of a residential macro-complex. Armed only with cameras and security cameras , our task is to capture evidence that the works would harm the squirrelsof the forest, belonging to a protected species, to get the attention of the authorities and try to stop the Panorama plan .
Investigating chipmunks camera in hand
We arrive at Melmoth Forest with one hand in front and the other behind: we are released into a ramshackle caravan with barely a cot, a landline with a fax, a cork notice board, and a surveillance system. With these elements, added to the cameras that are delivered to us daily at the door of the caravan, NUTS challenges us to follow the trail of a series of squirrels : each investigation mission is based on investigating the final destination of the rodents, having to find the nest they go to every night or the hiding place where they store nuts. The grace is that when the sun goes down, the squirrels always make the same route, so to find this destination we will only have to plant the cameras in the right place, see where they are going and follow that trail day after day.
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The game loop proposed by NUTS allows our investigation to be as long as we want; no rush, no goals, no points to finish earlier . We wake up in the morning, we place the cameras where we know the squirrels are going to come out, and at night we watch the recordings. We repeat this cycle until we manage to find the end of its journey in a task that requires a certain spatial perspective: the NUTS puzzles – we can call each of the six available chapters that way – are solved by understanding space, with attention to detail and thoroughness in the placement of the cameras. You have to be aware of the movement of the squirrels, but you also have to find reference points in the environment: “This one gets behind the second tree that appears in camera number three”, and the next morning you go and place a camera there , in another angle, to see what its trajectory is, to see when you lose sight of it again.
Professor Scholz will speak to us on the phone and will fax us investigative missions (six in total) that are divided into all the days we need to finish them.
And best of all, squirrels do not boast of a realistic or complex behavior : their path is the same every night, they are basically characters that follow the same path over and over again; but this supposed lack of NUTS is supplemented by an excellent level design that, on the one hand, hinders your view from the cameras, while on the other it tries to deceive you in each section of the route. Do you think a squirrel goes to that big tree at the bottom of the forest and you put the cameras there to finish the investigation sooner? Be careful with being too clever, because without exhaustiveness you are lost .
Minimal research
In reality NUTS almost allows you to finish each mission in one night: the scenarios in which you investigate are open , so the fate of the squirrels has to be, from the beginning , somewhere near you. They are not very large areas, but luck with finding the end point without following the path of the animals: there are nooks that cannot be seen with the naked eye, there are hidden nests where you least expect it. If you’ve already played it and remember those key points, you can finish the game in a matter of minutes – which, one could say, thrives on the replay value of the work – but the research task has to be so thorough that it can take us several days find the site in which your night tour ends.
We have full control over the placement of the cameras, including their position and the angle at which they are pointed.
If we look for references there are two very clear: on the one hand we have the exploration of the natural environment through a diegetic map, the investigation, the mystery and the telephone voice of Firewatch , while on the other its dynamics remind us of the detective of Return of the Obra Dinn , even forcing us to take out a pencil and paper to find out the mystery ( Lucas Pope appears in the acknowledgments, for a reason ). All, of course, with a minimalist approach almost to design by subtraction: there is nothing to distract from what really matters, nor do you need to.
This aesthetic of minimal investigation is achieved to perfection , something especially worth noting when we are talking about a game in which there are no crimes or murders. The weight of the mystery is carried away by the squirrels -although the plot surrounding the investigation has overtones of urban corruption- and seeing us pick up a notebook and pen to write down details that help us reveal what these rodents hide is something that we simply did not expect when we entered in NUTS . In all this it helps that the game takes control of the investigation tools so seriously, with an analog recreation of every movement and device that we use in the game.: take the photos and put them in the fax to send them, press the buttons of the video surveillance system, position the cameras and control their angle from the tripod … Everything is recreated with a care, both visual and sound, but especially in terms of touch, that makes playing a delight.
We can control the recordings by rewinding, forwarding, modifying the speed and zooming to discern if that spot we see is a squirrel or something else.
Here perhaps you have to take into account the different versions of NUTS : playing it on iOS devices can be quite uncomfortable and it seems that it has not been fully optimized, while on Nintendo Switch it handles quite well (it is the version that we have tested for the analysis) although it presents slight and very specific problems with the framerate and the joysticks are not very precise when performing certain actions. Perhaps, and although we should not rule out the hybrid, PC is the ideal place to avoid all these small bumps, although it is a version that we have not tested either.
Degraded forests and negative nights
What is clear is that in any of these three platforms we will enjoy its peculiar and at the same time beautiful artistic section , a unique style that not only attracts the gaze of the players, but is also used as a conducting element of the plot: the palette oversaturated color changes each chapter, giving a sense of linearity to the story. In addition, the nights of NUTS , usually only see through the camera, is quite rightly set with negative colors to those of the day: it not only marks the difference from the first hours of each day, but also conducive to the dark and gloomy atmosphere of which the nocturnal forests make finery.
Everything that Pol Clarissou does with the art of NUTS is worthy of note and praise. The shady but at the same time colorful places of Melmoth brim with beauty when we walk among them, letting ourselves be enchanted by nature : in the mornings we have freedom of action and exploration, so after placing the cameras we can take a walk around the stage where, In addition, we will discover cassette tapes that our boss, Professor Nina Scholz, left when she went on a mission similar to ours a few years ago. These tapes, like the rest of the objects with which we can interact, present a modeling worked in detail, although its colors and post-processing effects can give a minimalist look: looking closely at these elements – including the squirrels, if we can get close enough to them – adds to the contemplative dynamics that NUTS can boast .
Although they may seem simple, the modeling of the objects enjoy an excellent attention to detail.
Each corner of this game is worked in detail , in fact, not only in terms of its visual section, in which we can also highlight the animation of the squirrels, but also in the sound, where the person in charge of the design of audio, Almut Schwacke , gives voice to Professor Scholz (it comes in English, but with texts in Spanish) . It is the only human voice that we hear in the entire game, not even the character we play can speak, and it is the one that guides everything that happens in the story. His acting is quite good, as is the recreation of the sounds of nature and squirrels that we hear throughout the game.
There are certain details that we can throw in the face of NUTS , but that perhaps contribute little taking into account its benefits : it is true that the story can be taken with tweezers and that its end is somewhat bizarre, it is also true that there is no life in it forest beyond the squirrels or that their behavior, once the artificial intelligence trap is revealed, can be simple. Also in the technical aspects it may seem a bit crude and that its save system, which restarts the entire chapter if we close the game without finishing it, is a bit tedious. But with all the good things it does, with how it approaches the aesthetics of mystery and investigation while eliminating all distractions, and how it manages to hook the player while it enchants them with its beautiful landscapes, it would be absurd to stick with those minutiae.
When we finish ‘NUTS’ we will have the gallery full of photos like this.
Conclusions
NUTS is everything that Firewatch wanted to be and could not : it is not about contrasting the two works, but about putting in value that the minimalism of this spectacular independent title makes it reach in a much more effective way the essence of investigation and mystery , as well as the relationship of both with nature and our human, emotional, and wild interaction. Letting us explore in our air, without pressure of any kind , and giving us total freedom to solve the mystery of where the squirrels are going, NUTSmanages to stick us to the screen and not let us stop until we have found a way to stop the pernicious works of Panorama in Melmoth Forest. We have everything we need at our disposal, so it is in our power to achieve this objective by working, from a pleasant and analogical tediousness , at the foot of the field and in the most meticulous way possible. All this, obviously, surrounded by a unique artistic style that will invite us again and again to take screenshots of every corner of this peculiar ancient forest. Every aspect of NUTS makes the game stand out, but it is the conjunction of its elements that makes it a must-have title .
